Spiralling Skywards: Falling (Contradictions #1)

by Jones,Lesley

  She folded her arms across her chest and cocked her hip to the side. Her mouth opened a few times, but she never actually spoke.

  “Are we clear?”

  “As crystal,” she replied.

  “Good. Get your coat, we’re leaving.”

  ***

  I tried Sarah’s number continuously on the train ride home. It’d been switched off, which pissed me off. I didn’t care what she said about not speaking to me, we would talk and we would get this whole mess sorted out.

  Mel, who had been quiet on our walk to the station, now rambled on from her seat opposite me. I tuned her out.

  When my battery was finally down to its last ten percent, I stopped attempting to call Sarah in case she attempted to call me. Either way I would go to her house straight from the station and talk to her face to face.

  “So who is she?” Mel interrupted my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Your girlfriend, who is she?”

  “Did you not listen to anything I said before we left the office?”

  “Oh come on.” Her long legs were crossed and she poked me with the tip of her grey shoe. I looked down at where her foot had made contact with my trousers and then back up at her.

  “I’m your fucking boss. You do not poke me with your shoe.”

  “It’s almost eight thirty, I’m off the clock.”

  “We paid you travel time today, and we paid your travel fare. You are not off the clock.”

  Fuck me, she was a pain in my arse. She might be good at her job, but she was a fucking pest. I had no clue how Luke put up with her as a girlfriend.

  “You are one—”

  I raised my eyebrows, daring her to carry on with whatever insult she was about to throw my way. She huffed, turned her face to the window, and folded her arms.

  My phone rang, I nearly hit the luggage rack above my head.

  Luke.

  Great.

  “Speak, arsewipe,” I answered with.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Pretty good. The Germans, Malaysians, and probably the Scottish companies are mostly in, the rest have gone away to look at figures. They need to calculate what they’d save on man hours by handing things over to us, obviously I’ve told them that they also need to factor in the discount we can get on rental accommodation, saving them even more.”

  “Where are you now?”

  Ah, so that was the real reason for his call. It was late, he was just checking that I wasn’t with his sister.

  “We’re still on the train, about ten minutes from home.”

  “We’re?”

  “Yeah, Mel’s with me.”

  “Is she now? Behaving herself I hope?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good girl. You coming straight home?”

  “Nope.”

  “No? Where you going then?”

  “To my flat.” I cringed, waiting on his response.

  “The one right across from my sister? Like fuck you are. I’ll pick you up at the station.”

  “No need. I left my car there this morning.”

  “I’ll leave now.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll meet you at the flat.”

  “Great,” I said with the least enthusiasm possible.

  “You better stay the fuck away from her.”

  “Or what?”

  “Don’t push me, fucker.”

  “Have you spoken to her today?”

  “No, have you?”

  “Nah, her phones off.”

  “Yeah, I tried calling. I spoke to Sash, but she hadn’t heard from her either. I might call her now actually. Will said he sent her a text but didn’t get a reply.”

  “Why the fuck is he texting her?”

  My dull headache turned into a throb and dots danced in front of my eyes.

  “Probably the same reason you were trying to call her. I love the way you both totally ignored my request to stay the fuck away from her. Great friends you two turned out to be.”

  “If he’s been around there today, I swear, I will kill that fucker.”

  “Chill the fuck out, dude. He hasn’t seen her. He asked if they could meet, but she didn’t . . .” He paused. “Ya know what? I don’t know why I’m getting involved. I’ve asked you both to stay away from her, and you’ve both ignored me. You wanna know what’s happening with Will and my sister, ask him and I’ll tell him the same about you.”

  “You’re a miserable fucker, d’you know that? You know what your problem is, you need a shag.”

  “I got one last night, ask your mum.”

  Despite my mum being twelve thousand kilometres away and knowing full well that it was impossible, I hung up on him.

  Mel starred at me with her eyebrows raised.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Trouble in paradise? I’m intrigued. Who’s got you all twisted up? She must be someone special.”

  You ever see the film Flubber about the green bouncy stuff? Well I felt a ball of emotion bouncing around that train carriage, no matter which way I dodged and ducked, it got me. Hitting me in the chest over and over again.

  My throat felt constricted and my chest tight as I thought about how special Sarah was. Tears stung the back of my eyes so I turned my head to face the blackness outside of the train window.

  “You have no idea,” I finally forced out just as the lights of our stop came into view.

  I didn’t tell Sasha about Olivia’s visit when she got home from work that night. I was more than a little humiliated by the way I’d been suckered in by Liam and didn’t see why the rest of the world should get to hear about it, especially my brother.

  Whatever had gone on between me and Liam, I didn’t want it to impact what my brother was trying to get off the ground, and I was worried that if he knew about the extent Liam had lied to me, it would. So, I simply chose not to mention Olivia’s visit to anyone.

  I’d showered, washed and blow dried my hair, put on non-thirteen-year-old girl style clothes and even managed to make chicken fajitas for dinner by the time Sasha got home.

  “So you’re doing okay? You’ve had today to get your head around it all and you’re absolutely sure you’re done, it’s over?” she asked while spreading my secret recipe guacamole over her wrap.

  “He lied to me, Sash. If I had known from the very beginning that he had a wife, then I would never have gotten involved.”

  I gulped down some wine, hoping it would relieve the pressure in my throat and chest.

  “But he’s in love with you.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t love him. We’ve had a great month together, but now we’re over. It’s time for him to face up to his responsibilities.”

  “That baby’s not his.”

  “And you know this how?”

  She shoved a bite of her wrap, which was overfilled with chicken, cheese, guac, and sour cream, into her mouth, chewed a few times, and then spoke.

  “Uhldee.”

  “What? Swallow what you’re eating, you pig.”

  She stopped chewing, tilted her head to the side, and opened her mouth wide so I got to view its contents.

  “You’re an animal, you know that? A child. An animal child.”

  She stuck her food loaded tongue out at me, and I laughed. She was disgusting, but I loved her.

  She finally swallowed and said, “He told me. He told all of us here last night. The baby’s not his and he’s in love with you. I believe him, Sares.”

  She was suddenly serious, but I’d take viewing a mouthful of her half chewed food over serious any day.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why’d you believe him? How can you be so sure?”

  She was quiet for a long moment before puffing out her cheeks and blowing out a breath.

  “He just doesn’t come across as a liar.”

  Oh how little she knew. I raised my eyebrows at her. Neither Sash nor I were experts on men. Neither of us had ever
been in a serious long-term relationship. Sash had dated a bit more than I had, and she had slept with a few more men, which wasn’t really hard to achieve, but at that stage of our lives, we were both a little naïve.

  “Okay, he can’t know for sure about the baby. He did sleep with her after all, so there’s always a possibility, but he definitely loves you. I know that much.”

  Well if that were the case, I would just have to convince him that I didn’t feel the same. He needed to go back to his wife and raise their child, together. I refused to be responsible for breaking up a marriage. My mother’s selfish actions had deprived four children of a father, one was too many for me.

  “Perhaps he does, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s married. I don’t wanna be involved with a married man. It’s as simple as that.”

  I pushed my plate away, my almost non-existent appetite now gone completely.

  “You’re not her, you know that, right? These circumstances are entirely different to your parents’.”

  “I know that.”

  I didn’t.

  They weren’t.

  I felt too hot, too panicky. I gulped down my wine and concentrated on breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth.

  “What if he divorces her?”

  I raised my shoulders. My plan was to step out of the way and let Liam and Olivia try to sort their shit out. He still lied to me. It wouldn’t change anything.

  Would it?

  “Well, we’ll have to wait and see. At the moment he has a wife, a pregnant wife. If they, or he decides to continue with the divorce despite the pregnancy, then we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Do you not feel anything for him? Have you really been able to switch it off that easily?”

  Tears threatened instantly.

  “Of course I haven’t. I’m hurt and I’m angry that he lied, but there’s a child involved, Sash, which means I refuse to be. Yeah, if he were already divorced, if there were no pregnancy, even if we’d just had a bit more time together, he would be exactly the type of person I could see myself falling in love with. That’s not the case, though, so it’s time to get real and move on.”

  “So if he gets his divorce and comes back and tells you he still wants you, what then?”

  “Seriously? I don’t bloody know, okay? I. Don’t. Know. Now, can we just leave it?”

  I felt like I was gonna throw up. I should’ve just come out and told her what a lying, cheating fucker Liam was, but I didn’t know if that information would make its way back to my brother.

  “There’s something else you need to know.”

  “Do I need more wine for this?” I poured the last few drips from the cab sav into my glass.

  “You probably will.”

  She reached behind her and pulled a second bottle from our wine rack. I’d drunk more these last few weeks than I’d ever done in my life.

  “You probably will, ha, no pun intended.”

  I stared at her blankly.

  “You don’t get it do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “You really have no clue?”

  She was beginning to piss me off.

  “Sasha, just tell me what you’re talking about, please. My head’s about to explode here.”

  She topped up my wine glass before sitting down heavily on the bar stool next to me.

  “Sares, when we were all here last night, Will confessed that he has feelings for you too.”

  I spat my wine. Correction, I sprayed my wine over Sasha, the breakfast bar, and the laminate flooring. Every-fucking-where.

  “What? He said what? To who? Who did he tell?”

  “All of us. Me, Luke, and Liam.”

  I didn’t even attempt to clear up the wine splatters. I sat with my eyes closed, massaging my temples with my fingertips while Sasha wiped herself and the surrounding area down with a dish cloth and kitchen roll.

  “What did he say exactly? What was their response? I don’t believe this.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty much what Luke said, but Liam said he’d already worked it out for himself. He said he’d told you.”

  “He did.”

  “He said you didn’t take him seriously.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Jesus, Sares, Will? He’s practically your brother.”

  “I know.”

  “Hot, though.”

  “He is.”

  My mind began to wonder . . . could I? Could Will be exactly what I needed to get over Liam?

  “You know what they say, ‘The best way to get over someone is to get—’”

  “This is Will we’re talking about, Sash.”

  “Yeah?”

  We stared at each other for a few moments.

  “I’ve just never allowed myself to think of him in that way, well not since I got over my teenage crush.”

  “God, I have.”

  “Really?”

  “Fuck yeah. Like I said, He’s hot. I’ve had a crush on him since I first started coming over to your house.”

  “You were five.”

  “So? A girl wants what a girl wants. I hated all them bitches that used to turn up at your nan’s looking for him and Luke.”

  “Those.”

  “What?”

  “Those bitches, not ‘them bitches’.”

  “Either way, I hated them.”

  “What about Luke? I always thought you had a crush on him?”

  I suddenly felt bad for my brother. He was good-looking, why didn’t she fancy him? My ultimate dream when I was younger was to have my best friend marry my brother.

  “Oh, I do.”

  “Do or did?”

  She tilted her head to the side, leaned forward, and tucked some wayward strands of hair behind my ear.

  “You’ve really no idea do you, Sarah?”

  “About what?”

  “I’m so in love with your brother that I can barely breathe when he’s around.”

  Luckily I had already swallowed my last mouthful of wine.

  “What? Since when?”

  “Since I was about five. Broke my heart when he hooked up with Melanie Thompson, probably more than when he went travelling. I’ll never know what he saw in her.”

  I finished the wine in my glass. My head both spun and thumped at all of today’s revelations.

  The doorbell rang. We stared at each other.

  “If it’s Will or Liam, tell them I’m not here.”

  “Goddit,” she said over her shoulder while heading to the door.

  I strained my ears but could only hear mumbling. Then I heard a loud, “Hey!” from Sasha just before Liam appeared from around the corner.

  “Cheese and rice your face is a mess.” His eye was blue and purple and his lip was split, but I still shouldn’t have actually said that. It made me sound like I cared.

  “What?” he asked, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Cheese and what?”

  He was wearing a suit, and he hadn’t shaved for a few days.

  Add looking gorgeous to the list of reasons why I couldn’t be around him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “No, Liam, we don’t.”

  “Sorry, I tried to stop him,” Sash called from behind where Liam now stood staring at me. I felt paranoid and brushed my hand over my face, checking for guacamole or sour cream.

  “I’m gonna go upstairs and let you two talk.”

  “That’s really not necessary—”

  “Thanks—”

  We spoke at the same time. He continued to stare.

  “I’ve missed you today, pretty girl. I hated not talking to you, hated not sleeping wrapped around you last night, too.”

  “Liam, please don’t do this.”

  He stepped forward and lent across the breakfast bar towards me.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t be here. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

&nb
sp; His eyes searched my face.

  “Make what harder, Sarah?”

  I looked down at my plate, my food barely touched.

  “I can’t be with you. I’m sorry, but everything I said last night still stands.”

  “That baby’s not mine. I swear to you, that baby is not mine.”

  I finally met his gaze.

  “It’s not about the baby. It’s about you and me. You lied. We’ve spent nearly every night together for over month, and you waited until we slept together before telling me you were married.”

  “And yet you still slept with me again. I told you I was married, and we still slept together afterwards.”

  “Yeah, because I didn’t know at that stage that you’d also lied to me about the fact that you’d recently slept with your wife. You told me it had been over for two years.” I drew in deep breaths and calmed myself enough to continue without crying. “You know what hurts me more than anything? I actually thought you cared about me. We had unprotected sex, Liam. You told me I had nothing to worry about, ‘it’s been a while.’ You told me. You are so full of shit. You lied, and I’m done.”

  “I did, I lied, and I’m sorry but not about that. I would never lie about something like that, Sarah. Olivia is the only person I’ve ever had unprotected sex with, but not that night. I hadn’t seen her for two years, I knew that she’d been sleeping with other men. I knew that she was still carrying on the affair with the same man that I’d caught her in bed with. I wouldn’t risk my own health like that, let alone yours.”

  I stared at him. I didn’t want to speak because I knew I would cry, so I simply stared and stayed silent. He’d broken me, and I hadn’t realised just how much until that moment.

  “Don’t do this, Sares. Please don’t do this.”

  His bottom lip trembled.

  My heart once again shattered. It had been repairing itself all day. I’d sticky taped the fractured pieces back together and then bandaged them tight, but it hadn’t been enough protection, not against him.

  “We’ve got something good, Sarah, you know we do. Don’t let Olivia turning up here ruin that.”

  “She didn’t, don’t you see that? You ruined it by not being honest with me.”

  Shit. I’d been so determined not to cry, but traitorous tears were trekking down my cheeks. “You ruined what we had by not being honest with me, don’t you see that? Don’t you get it?”